TRIBUNE//Bill Ruthhart and Rick Pearson
Mayor Lori Lightfoot cast President Donald Trump and Republicans as “enemies of democracy” who are mounting a “full-out assault” on the integrity of the November election by undermining the U.S. Postal Service and making it more
difficult for people to vote by mail amid a pandemic.
Lightfoot made the comments Monday morning during a virtual roundtable discussion at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee focused on protecting the right to vote this fall.
“Every day the importance of this fall’s election grows and grows, and every day, unfortunately, we see increasing evidence that this administration is mounting a full-out assault on every pillar of our democracy, including the
integrity of our elections,” Lightfoot said. “This is real, folks. It’s not an exaggeration. It’s not a conspiracy theory.”
The former federal prosecutor then went on to hammer the Trump administration and Republicans for draconian cuts at the Postal Service that have disrupted the delivery of mail in recent days. Trump has acknowledged opposing funding
for the Postal Service as an effort to undercut vote-by-mail efforts, which he has insisted would lead to corruption while offering no evidence and voting by mail himself in Florida.
Lightfoot said since the White House had failed to keep Americans safe from the COVID-19 pandemic, “vote by mail is the lane we need to run in” to avoid having people “risk their health just to cast a vote.”
“That’s why we cannot allow this administration to undermine the Postal Service in a way that is clearly trying to drive the Postal Service to its knees, making mail service unreliable — putting postal workers at risk by changing
hours and stretching into the night and failing to give the post office the resources that it needs to fulfill its basic mission,” Lightfoot said. “This assault, of course, is about election integrity.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Lightfoot also slammed Republicans for what she portrayed as additional attacks on the election, including a “thinly veiled poll tax” in some states to ban felons from voting, purging voter rolls in certain areas of the country
and closing polling places in targeted neighborhoods. She called on Democrats to push back on those efforts and GOP desires to sow confusion about voting by mail.
“What we need to do in the face of this pandemic is to make sure that Americans understand that it is safe to vote, not dangerous,” Lightfoot said. “They are drumming up a climate of anxiety that is driven by their desperation
to hold on to power. You can see the Senate majority eroding and the Oval Office is slipping from their grasp. Their current efforts reflect their desperation and their fear.”
During a speech Monday afternoon in Mankato, Minnesota, Trump repeated previous criticism that Amazon and other companies are taking advantage of the Postal Service, which he contended loses money by having to deliver large volumes
of packages. Trump, however, did not address the criticism that the Postal Service changes are aimed at undermining the election.
“The post office has been a disaster for many, many decades,” he said. “We want to strengthen the post office and make it good.”
As he often does, Trump also managed to lob criticism at Chicago in his Minnesota speech, saying that “criminals are terrorizing civilians in Chicago, Portland and now New York City.” He also said that outside of New York and
Chicago, crime stats nationally have improved during his time in the White House, blaming Democratic leaders for the problems.
“Do you want the failed policies of (New York) Mayor Bill de Blasio or Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago, or (Minneapolis) Mayor Jacob Frey brought to every city and town in this nation?” Trump asked as the crowd shouted, “No!” back.
“If left-wing Democrats can’t run a city, why on earth would you let them run your country?”
At an event later Monday in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Trump again warned that if Democrat Joe Biden is elected, the looting and violent protests seen in Portland, Minneapolis, New York and Chicago would become the norm nationwide.
“In Chicago, they literally raised up the drawbridges to prevent hordes of rioters from ransacking the city. Can you believe it?” Trump said of Lightfoot’s security measures to protect the downtown shopping district from looting.
As he has before, Trump compared Chicago’s high level of gun violence with war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“This is the future that Joe Biden plans to bring to every city, town and suburb in our nation,” Trump said.
Lightfoot made her comments about Trump during a virtual online roundtable discussion along with Emily Cain, executive director of EMILY’s List; Alex Morgan, executive director of the Progressive Turnout Project political organization;
and Rachana Desai Martin from the Biden campaign.
When panelists were asked what keeps them up at night on the subject of protecting people’s ability to vote, Lightfoot said it was the “chaos and uncertainty” over the integrity of mail-in balloting.
“Donald Trump thrives in chaos. He likes creating this, this atmosphere of uncertainty, of danger — is something right, is it not right? What we need to do is make sure that we block out the noise and let people know that their
vote is safe, that there’s many ways in which they can do it, and that they’re not going to be prevented from voting,” Lightfoot said. “That is one of the most important things is to break through the noise and the chaos that this administration and his campaign
are trying to create that somehow their vote won’t matter, somehow, they won’t be able to vote. Not true.”
Lightfoot also appeared for a little more than 30 seconds during the prime-time two-hour telecast of the convention Monday night, as part of a roundtable with Biden on social justice. When Biden asked what she’s doing to tackle
systemic racism, the mayor explained that she’s working to improve the quality of life in all communities and bringing more diverse stakeholders into the decision-making process at City Hall.
Also on Monday, in a preview of the Illinois delegation’s salute to allies in organized labor, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said union postal workers as well as the public were being victimized by a “post office under assault by Donald
Trump.”
“America’s message to Donald Trump is very simple: Keep your hands out of our mailboxes,” Durbin said. “We believe the Postal Service does a great job and needs our support. They don’t need to be sabotaged in the name of political
victory for Donald Trump.”
At the same event, U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García said Trump’s actions involving the Postal Service represent “one of the most flagrant violations of democracy” in the president’s efforts to undermine government institutions.
Trump, he said, was seeking “to advance his own interest, to prevent a fair election by causing destruction, confusion and undermining one of the most important essentials of any democracy and that is a post office.”
García is scheduled to visit the Postal Service’s Chicago headquarters Tuesday morning along with a delegation of other Illinois Democrats in Congress to speak about the controversy.